Monday, January 19, 2026
-Bill Crane-
As a young man, I was blessed to have a grandmother who took an interest in my education. Mary L. Crane read almost constantly. Her office and home were covered with books and magazines, tabbed to be re-read, and highlighted for the appreciation of more important passages. Mary was also a decades-long subscriber to Reader’s Digest, and she kept years’ worth of the magazine at home, in her office and car as well as her beach house.
She introduced me to the Reader’s Digest book series, but also and perhaps more importantly to “It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power,” a monthly feature with new and often under-utilized words to broaden my vocabulary. As she took me to Falcon’s games or live theater over the years, she would pop quizz me on the vocabulary words, from issues she knew I had borrowed. Her only repayment request for all of those gifts was to ‘learn the words.’
So with that spirit in mind, three words to share and their meanings, which I toss out into the world in hopes they reach a few folks in the West Wing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Some folks there apparently don’t read a lot, so we will keep it simple and straight forward and start with the “A’s.”
Ally –
An ally is a friend, a supporter, in the geo-political sense, someone who has your back. Think of the Three Musketeers and ‘all for one and one for all.’ After WWI, America and its leaders chose a period of isolationism, high tariffs and a withdrawal from world affairs. The years that followed would bring the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1917-1918, a bursting stock market bubble in 1929 and our nation’s greatest period of economic depression through much of the 1930s.
While attempting to re-build the American economy, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw our European Allies from WWI being torn down, occuppied and economically destroyed by Germany. Following attack by Japan on the U.S. Naval Operations at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 12/07/1941, by an ally of the adversary of our friends in Europe, F.D.R. and Congress declared war on Japan, and its allies in Germany, which became known as the Axis Powers.
Thankfully, the Allies, the U.S., Europe and aligned nations including Australia, Canada and friends in many other parts of the globe, as well as a late surprise shifting alliance by Russia from one team to the other, we won that war.
The NATO Alliance which formed after remains perhaps the strongest demonstration of a geo-political alliance since in modern history. At least…it has been.
Adversary –
An adversary may begin as a competitor, even a peer, who overtime clearly does not have your best interests in mind, who often will place you in harms’ way, if not outright attack you. Many would view the words adversary and enemy as synonyms. Adversaries make generally hostile trade partners, at time will require sanctions or boundaries for any contact and in general may never be entirely trusted.
Asset –
With our allies, friends and supporters, we build and invest in assets of all kinds, robust trade, defense agreements and treaties and even joint ownership of many assets to insure continued joint investment and good will. In numerous cases our U.S. Military owns/operates military installations, air strips and naval bases all over the world including the DMZ at the borders of North & South Korea, in Berlin again at the border of what was once East and West Germany and Berlin, in a detention center in Cuba called Guantanamo Bay and even in more remote locations on the globe including 13 installations, air strips and posts in Saudi Arabia or the near artic corners of Greenland, where the U.S. Space Force operates one of its most critical air defense stations (and the U.S. formally operated 16 other installations after signing a Greenland National Defense treaty in 1951).
It Pays to Read and It’s Never Too Late
As certain occupants at the White House are more prone to speaking than listening, this vocabulary lesson all boils down to really one sentence, and as my grandmother used to test me…it contains all of our new Lesson Words of the Day, and one bonus word.
“Turning allies into adversaries, at a cost of the loss of tremendous and long term assets and parternships is simply asinine.”
Next week we will make a quick jump to the “D”s – And our words will be Distraction, Division and Dictators. Keep your eyes and ears open, and keep reading.
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